6 NORTHERN NEWS, FEBRUARY 27, 2013
NEWS
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While
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Spanish beat
tomato glut
with cannons
OPINION
Tomatoes: Seeing red.
By ROWAN MILLER
It s difficult to think anything but
pleasant thoughts when eating a
home-grown tomato. Except when
you can t face another mouthful and
they re coming out your ears and
every available vessel is stacked
high with them, even the dog s
bowl, and your neighbours are cry-
ing for mercy and anyway, they
have the same problem -- over-
abundance, as George Dubya Bush
used to say.
It happens like this: In the
gloomy month of August when it
rains all the time and your friends
are sending postcards from Italy,
where they are baking themselves
to a crisp beside the pool in a villa
in Tuscany and you can almost
smell the ripped basil macerating
with juicy tomatoes in olive oil and
you think to yourself: Yes, I must
have lots of tomatoes this year.
Then in February -- just the very
same time, coincidentally, as tom-
atoes drop to 50 cents a kilo in the
supermarkets -- the home garden is
awash with produce and folk can be
forgiven for having most
unpleasant thoughts about their
vegetable garden . . . like paving it
over.
Greed and poor maths account for
a great many mistakes in the vege
garden. Many edibles (don t speak
to me about beans) come on all at
once -- zucchinis have a habit of
launching into obesity overnight.
Spring onions turn from hair-width
to leek-size in front of your eyes.
And rocket! Say no more.
Sensible people will learn from
their mistakes. They will not germi-
nate a whole packet of seeds at
once. They will not feel obliged to
plant out and nurture every orphan
seedling. Instead, they will buy one
punnet of seedlings each week and
share it with five other friends.
Succession planting is an orderly
style of gardening which delivers a
little bit of what you want, when
you want it, all through the season.
Which is a fine idea but so hard to
achieve.
The thing to do is find creative
ways to dispose of an embarrass-
ment of produce. Being a fulltime
vegan is one way, but oh, how tedi-
ous. There s always bottling of
course, and freezing and many
other ways of spending time in the
kitchen.
The Spanish have solved their
problem with surplus tomatoes --
they throw them at each other.
Each year about 30,000 people turn
up in Bunol, Valencia, for the Festi-
val La Tomatina. They assemble
early in the morning and after a
healthy breakfast of fatty sausage
and wine, they slug it out with
125,000 kilos of fruit fired from can-
nons above the crowd. The slightly
messy affair is over in a matter of
hours when, presumably, they all
sit back down for a lunch of more
wine and chorizo with sauce on the
side. No bulls are harmed and it
beats the hell out of bottling.
The rest of us just have to get
along as best we can with our
excess produce -- developing a taste
for marrow jam, weaving sunhats
from onion skins or runner-bean
vines, dehydrating tomato pulp into
yards of fruit leather and using it as
gift wrapping, and so on.
Tomato sauce, train-smash -- call
it what you will -- is a mainstay of
every pantry and I won t hear a bad
word about Wattie s, but for some-
thing homemade, something value-
added to impress the neighbours --
not to mention the Spanish -- try
this recipe from Nana Dot Farland:
Take about 3kg tomatoes, 3 large
onions, 2 cloves garlic, 1 Tbsp whole
allspice (secured in a muslin bag or
an old sock, which can be fished out
later), 1 Tbsp salt, 750g soft brown
sugar and 400mls brown vinegar.
Put all in a large preserving pan.
Simmer for three hours. Mouli,
whiz or sieve into bottles.
WRITE TO THE EDITOR
Mail: 60 Broadway, Kaikohe
Email: keri.molloy@snl.co.nz
NOTICES
BOI Hash House Harriers, meet every Monday at
6pm for a social run/walk -- competitiveness
accepted. Sense of humour a must! Different
locations each week. Contact Tight Bolt on
407 5151 or 5Nil on 021 885 952
Twilight carnival, all the fun of the bazaar -- loads
of games, food for dinner, live music and oodles of
entertainment for the whole family. includes
bouncy castles, go carts, pony rides, and even a
touch rugby tournament! bring some friends. free
entry! Riverview School in Kerikeri, March 15, 4pm-
7pm.
Self defence, two visiting sailors from Canada,
Liliane and Mike who would like to donate their
time and effort to helping keeping women safe by
running girls/women's self-defence classes at the
Opua Hall in April when they are here. They are
happy to run two classes, each of two sessions of
two hours, totalling four hours of instruction at
each class. Dates to be confirmed. Watch this
column for more information.
Kawakawa St John is fundraising for the Child
Cancer Foundation. They are holding their men leg
waxing and women head shaving on March 3.
Come join in for the fun or a kind donation
New Zealand Book Month event at Mangonui
Library on March 6, from 10am-12.30. Another
event at Oromahoe School on March 20. Go to
nzbookmonth.co.nz At the Mangonui Library
children will be read to at 10.30am -- ideal for
children aged 7 years and below. It will run for
about 30-45 minutes. After that, writer Donna
Blaber will be at the library until 12.30pm to meet
and engage with readers and talk about her work
as an author of children's fiction and non-fiction
books for adults.
'H' Factor? The Homestead presents a new
karaoke competition. More heats on March 2, 9,
semis on March 16 and finals on March 23.
Kerikeri/Kaeo Plunket parenting workshops: your
active toddler -- three sessions: Feb 28 and March
7 and 14. Contact: e-mail
toni.yarrow@plunket.org.nz or call 021 144 5102
to book.
Totara North fun community day, to progress the
Community Garden initiative at the Totara North
Hall, April 13, 10am-3pm. A fun community day
with the opportunity for local people to converge,
network, enjoy some time and to meet and learn
what is available in the community. Perhaps you
have spare eggs, produce, plants, create artwork,
knit, sew, make jewellery, have a cottage industry
at/in your home, have a business -- promote what
you do, want to clean out your shed/house --
recycle/upcycle. Contact Anita Herbert 405 1720,
Jan Holder 405 1655 if you would like to have a
stall, $5 per trestle table size.
Mangonui Waterfront Festival, April 6, featuring
local wine, food, art and entertainment -- a non-
profit community event organised and run by
Doubtless Bay Promotions
Seaweek, March 2-10, theme is Healthy Seas --
Healthy People, and is run by NZ Association for
Environment Education. Go to:
mels@subliminal.co.nz
The Cape Brett Challenge, April 27 -- three route
options, 37km classic run which takes in the
lighthouse, 17km Whangamumu loop run/walk
and 10km Kauri Ridge run/walk. Go to
caprebrettchallenge.co.m
Te Houtaewa Beach Race Challenge, runs and
walks, Ninety Mile Beach, 90 Mile Beach, Aupouri
Peninsula, March 23. Four races: The ultra
marathon which is 60km, the marathon 42km and
both half marathon run and half marathon walk are
21km long. There is also a cycle race. Go to
tehoutaewa.co.nz.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
GUIDELINES
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words. All letters must have full
name, residential address and
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rights and reputations of
individuals and groups. Write to
The Editor,
Mail60 Broadway, Kaikohe
Email: keri.molloy@snl.co.nz
Great little Te Hapua
In reply to the letter from Roger
Boshier, I believe I can partly
answer his question about Te
Hapua as my parents both taught
at the school in the 1940s and I was
a pupil there for a while. Selwyn
Muru was there too. I would like to
make several points:
1. Although the conditions there
were isolated and primitive there
was a high interest in education
and a desire by the parents to do
their best for the kids.
2. Many of the high-achieving kids
were sent away to Maori boarding
schools for their secondary
education at great sacrifice to their
whanau.
3. I imagine that these kids
received government assistance
and the standard of education at
the boarding schools was very high.
4. The teachers at these schools,
then called native schools, were
well qualified and dedicated. This
may have been partly because
country service was a path to
promotion under the then existing
conditions. Native schools received
special government assistance with
all books and equipment supplied,
but the kids had to do the cleaning.
I remember windows being cleaned
with newspaper every day!
5. Te Hapua School had great
facilities with a huge dining hall
where a meal was prepared by the
pupils with food supplied by the
local families.
6. The Te Hapua community was
widely thought of as being special
in regard of the intelligence of its
people. I believe New Zealand s
first Maori woman graduate was
from there.
I am sure there are many other
people who could reply to your
question Roger, and I hope they
will do so.
Judy Bergquist
Kerikeri
Liability with GMOs
The recommendations of the Inter
Council Working Party on GMOs
has provided a landmark frame-
work for district councils and
unitary authorities to make plan
changes to regulate over and above
the weak and flawed Hazardous
Substances and New Organisms
Act.
The main flaws of the act are the
lack of a strict liability regime for
contamination and breaches of
trials, and lax containment
criteria. The working party has
released a draft plan change local
authorities can use as a blueprint
for regulation, supported by a
strong legal opinion as to plan
change robustness by Sommerville
QC as well as a thorough section 32
analysis which supports local
government regulation of GMOs.
The working party recommend-
ations include making GMO
general release a prohibited
activity and field trials a
discretionary activity in district
plans. This is in line with the
precautionary approach when
there are large gaps in the science,
when there are serious liability
issues and when there are massive
potentially irreversible environ-
mental risks. Having field trials as
discretionary would allow councils
to set bonds appropriate to the
risks and ensure adequate
containment provisions. This would
not be set in stone if the science
develops and the weight of risk
changes, the council can initiate or
a proponent can apply for a plan
change. However, with the current
situation with unfulfilled promises
of increased yields, environmental
and health disasters associated
with GM crops means a pre-
cautionary approach is the only
sane option.
What is required now is for the
Far North District Council staff to
present these resolutions to the
next council meeting to be
approved in principle and for work
to begin both within council and
collaboratively with the other
ICWP councils to bring about the
necessary plan changes.
At the same time, the Northland
Regional Council s proposed
regional policy statement has a
period of further submission for all
those who previously submitted, or
for someone who hasn t but has an
interest greater than the general
public. That includes about 315
submitters on the GMO issue, by
far the most submitted issue, to be
included as an issue of regional
significance to only two
submissions against. This period of
submission ends March 1 at 3pm.
It s very important that people
submit in support of other like-
minded submissions and to cross
submit against Federated Farmers
New Zealand and Farmers of New
Zealand, a Northland-based
organisation, which opposes any
sort of precautionary statement on
GMOs.
John Sanderson
Kerikeri
Carter's stance?
I note the recently publicised
candidacy of John Carter for the
mayoralty.
Having known John for some 25
years I have no doubt he will
represent the Far North honestly
and well. My only real concern is
his apparent reluctance to clarify
his stance on the possibility of the
Far North being combined under
the control of Whangarei under a
unitary authority structure, which
would be a disaster for the Far
North and its people. That, in my
view, is the objective of John Key
and his cronies in Wellington, and
John Carter s claimed closeness
with them is a risk all ratepayers
will have to consider.
Being a ward of Whangarei
would equally be a disaster for
ratepayers and I can only hope
John will once and for all clarify
where he stands on the retention of
the Far North under its own
unitary authority, removing the
blood-sucking regional council
structure from our lives once and
for all, along with its empire-
building objectives, driven by
representatives I would not employ
to run a dairy.
I hope John, through your
columns, will clarify where he
stands. If he stands for our own
unitary authority, he may well win.
If not, then all bets are off.
Rob Sintes
Kerikeri
Landslide ahead
John Carter is likely to landslide
into the Far North s local
government top job in August, and
at this week s council meeting, you
could almost hear the air deflating
from the giant unitary authority
balloon, as the Local Government
Commission s timetable scuppered
any completion till March 2014,
making the Far North unitary
authority a dead duck for all. Maori
are encouraged to do their own
thing.
Another Brownie brainwave --
only groups will be allowed to
submit on annual plans, individual
submissions are to be banned.
Goodbye Des and Derek.
Iain Morrison
Kerikeri